Salad dressing spurs venture

Three siblings turn entrepreneurs thanks to Gramma Amber's highly popular and very secret recipe

Feb. 26, 2013

The three siblings who decided to bottle their grandmother's salad dressing attended the Beer, Wine and Food Expo at Hy-Vee Hall in October. From left: Lisa Steffen, J.D. White and Lori Kruger. / Special to the Register

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GRAMMA AMBER’S DRESSING

For more information about Gramma Amber’s Salad Dressing visit www..grammaamberssaladdressing.com or contact Lisa Steffen at 641-590-1503

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If the three White siblings had a nickel for every time someone told them they should bottle and sell Gramma Amber’s secret-recipe salad dressing, well, they’d have a lot of nickels, but they’d still have to pitch in plenty more — money and time — to get a business going.

The very first step had already been taken: Lisa Steffen had possession of the recipe — not a given considering that after her mother, Dore, had gotten it from Gramma, she put it in shorthand in order to foil any would-be condiment cons. Luckily, before she died, Dore translated it so the family recipe, a slightly sweet, oniony, oil-and-vinegar-based dressing, could live on.

Steffen says Gramma Amber would be thrilled about her grandchildren’s venture. “Oh, she would be so tickled! She was a very classy lady who loved to entertain and would spend weeks planning events at her home. She would be very proud that her only three grandchildren decided to preserve her ... “beloved dressing recipe.”

An idea

“We talked about it for years,” says Steffen. “We kept saying, ‘we should really do something with this stuff; people love it.’” Then a year would go by, and Steffen, 52, her sister, Lori Kruger, 50, and brother, J.D. White, 44, would find themselves sitting around a holiday table together having the same conversation.

This scene replayed itself for many years until finally, White says, “I ran into the right guy.” The right guy turned out to be Bill Adair, who at the time owned Ozark Smoked Meats in Omaha, where White lives. Adair sold a bottled version of his barbecue sauce and was a mentor to the family in their start-up. “That’s hard to find,” White says. “He was so willing to help.” It seemed like a sign, so the family finally took the leap into the world of entrepreneurship.

A year ago yesterday (Feb. 26, 2012), the first bottles of Gramma Amber’s Salad Dressing rolled off the conveyor belt at Triple K Bottling in Shenandoah. The company headquarters is Steffen’s farm near Forest City, and it has satellite “offices” in Omaha, where White lives, and the Twin Cities area, where Kruger lives.

Making it happen

In between the talking about doing it and the actual doing it, there were of course lots (and lots) of steps and details and regulations and finances to learn about. The trio was starting from scratch — not one of them had any experience with starting a business.

Brian Maxine of Triple K provided the team with invaluable advice and a to-do list, which Steffen says, cringing even now, “It was pretty daunting. We had to buy bar codes, make a business plan, file with the state, find a label designer ...” The list seemed interminable.

One of the steps — sending the product for nutritional analysis for the label — offered Gramma’s team a welcome surprise: The dressing could legally be marketed as low-sodium, and MSG- and gluten-free, all of which hit consumer sweet spots these days.

A reality

Finally, all the dressing ducks were in a row and cases of Gramma Amber’s Salad Dressing, in a homey-looking bottle with a picture of the real Amber Christensen on it, were loaded into the teams’ trunks to be peddled in their respective communities. Steffen set aside one day, loaded up the car and just drove, stopping in every possible spot to get some shelf space. “No one said no,” she says proudly.

All three of Amber’s grandkids have day jobs and have squeezed extra minutes out of every day to spread the dressing love — and bottles, each covering territory close to home. Despite taking on what is basically a second job, they all agree that they’re having a ball. And, the three principals say, they’re amazed at the great response.

One of those positive responses came at the Hy-Vee’s Beer, Wine and Food Expo last October. The team went through 180 bottles of the dressing, demonstrating and selling it. Brett Reed, the produce manager of Hy-Vee’s Windsor Heights store, spotted them and agreed to carry the product, providing an entre into the Des Moines market, which Steffen is working on expanding. As of now they are carried in four Hy-Vees in Iowa and 21 altogether in the three home states of the founders. It is also sold in many other stores and used in 11 restaurants.

What's next

Gramma Amber’s Salad Dressing’s biggest challenge to growing much more in the months to come is distribution. Right now, Triple K sends a truckload of the stuff to Steffen in Forest City. From there, the family hits the road to fill orders.

Kruger says the company has had “talks” with a major distributor, but as Steffen points out, it could be a long time before anything comes of them. “Dorothy Lynch peddled salad dressing out of her car for 16 years,” before hitting it big, she says.

The slow growth that the dressing has experienced seems to suit the gang just fine. Each sibling contributed a modest amount to help get the company off the ground, Steffen says, “and if the company goes belly up, well, it’s not going to bankrupt any of us.”

A huge failure seems unlikely, at least for now. The company has already paid off a small business loan it took out and, at the end of a year in business, it is breaking even, one $4 bottle of dressing at a time.

So far, the Gramma Amber’s crew is enjoying the ride, and the siblings are on the same page: If it stops being fun, it stops altogether. But so far, so good. “If you don’t try, you don’t know,” Kruger says. “We’ll always be able to say it was fun and that we gave it a shot. We’re passionate about it.”

They also agree that making a bunch of money hasn’t ever been the end goal. Steffen says, “Our original intent was to share this legacy. If our own little circles of people try it and buy it, our goal has been met. If lots of others do, too, that’s great.”

The company’s low-key approach doesn’t mean Gramma Amber’s family doesn’t have a few stars in their eyes. Steffen says she regularly ships off packages to taste makers like Oprah, Ellen, Rachael Ray and Paula Deen. “I figure at some point, they’ll say, ‘This woman keeps sending this stuff; we might as well try it.’”

White — a sales professional by day, too, and what Steffen describes as the “schmoozer” of the group — loves demonstrating the product, talking to people and selling. He envisions a slow but steady growth. “I didn’t go into it expecting to make a living at it, but maybe we can actually make a profit someday. It’s kind of the American dream. People seem to love the product and they always love the story. ... I mean, you never know when Kraft might call.”